Customer Reviews

Professional SQL Server 2005 Integration Services (Programmer to Programmer)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

While I share the enthusiasm of the other reviewers, I'm not entirely convinced that any of them have read far enough to give the book 5 stars. I have nearly 10 years under my belt in BI, worked with SQL Server extensively, and not too shabby in the .NET department either; to be certain, SSIS 2005 is truly groundbreaking. However, the watchful readers will find a hurried book in their hands, one numerous typos and misleading information. For example, while I was able to figure out the nature of the strongly-typed properties of the incoming Row object for the Script Component example (Chapter 7) (you need to define the "Cleaned" ones yourself in the Script Transformation Editor to support the code for your Script Component), the book isn't completely clear and such information may not be so apparent to those new to the SSIS (or ETL) experience. Donald Farmer's book covering SSIS 2005 Scripting (the beta version) covers the Script Task and Script Component Transform Task better than Professional SQL Server 2005 Integration Services. Whilst I have focused on Chapter 7, I have found this pattern throughout the book. To be clear, I'm not terribly displeased with this book... it provides just enough coverage of the new product to get you going (with a welcome "under the hood" look at the SSIS engine) it's just that a 2nd Edition is required from WROX/WILEY to clean up its somewhat misleading content.

***NOTE TO WROX*** Before you release a tutorial, have someone other than the authors (or their friends) try each and every lesson!

This has to be one of the WORST tutorial/step-by-step books ever written.

I'm a seasoned DBA that has worked on every version of MS-SQL ever released. Starting with 4.9.2. I've also worked on Sybase, Oracle, Postgress and MySQL. Add to this several years of VB/C experience and time spent as a corporate trainer, and you can guess my technical aptitude. My experience with DTS/ETL includes hundreds (if not thousands) of packages on 7.0 & 2000. This book was purchased as a means of ramping up for a new consulting gig on SSIS. It was a complete waste of money.

The "tutorials" are disorganized, confusing, and the instructions don't match the examples. Even more annoying are the sections that appear to be lessons that aren't. You won't realize this until you start inputting the example and then get to a new paragraph that tells you this subject will be covered in another chapter. Even worse are the real examples whose instructions refer you back to a step that was left out or edited out of the book. This begins in chapter two when you are told to create a new "project" and then later told to add another project to the "solution", but, there was never any mention on how to start a "solution". This sets the tone for the rest of the book. You'll learn early on to read the entire chapter, then go back to the beginning and "try" the examples. Don't even get me started on the explanations being on one page, while the diagrams for the explanation are on the back of that page. Read a few sentences; turn the page to see the diagram; turn back to read some more; turn back to see the diagram (lather, rinse, repeat...)

It normally takes me only a few hours to breeze through five or six chapters of a technical tutorial. After TWO DAYS (a full Saturday and Sunday) of frustration that got me as far as half way through the fourth chapter, I discarded the book, drove to a local bookstore and bought something else off the self.

Rule #1 for tutorial books: The instructions must be COMPLETE.
Rule #2: The instructions must be in the order necessary to complete the lesson, (ie. 1-2-3-4, not, 1-4-3-5, oops...did we forget or edit out a step?)

I bought this book and had a lot of expectations. 10 Writers were involved to write this book which covers a complete new software tool from Microsoft, introduced with the newly released SQL Server 2005 replacing the DTS Service of SQL Server 2000 and earlier Versions plus adding tons of new features to the enterprise Database Solution which were previously unavailable.

The fact that 10 people contributed to it can be felt throughout the book, because no or little efforts were made to keep the writing style consistent. That can be a bit confusing at times.

Also when it comes to the content, are a lot of things not covert at all or not very well. When I did seek the help from the book for the first time for a very specific problem I tried to solve with SSIS, did the book fail to provide the answers to me. It addressed the problem, but it only addressed the stuff I already figured out myself. To the item I had my problem with did only exist a side note which did not help me at all. That was already a bad start.

I am looking for better alternatives which I have not found yet. It is probably good for somebody who wants to get an overview or general idea of the new Service, but might be the wrong choice for somebody who has specific applications in mind and tries to find answers to problems in this book.

The book provides a good starting point to learn SSIS, especially if you never worked with DTS.
However the book does give you a feeling that it was hurried, and the case study really does not adress the challenges you will face in real projects.

But for the Novice, this is a great book to get started with Integration Services.

I wish I could say that this book is the definitive book on SSIS, but I can't. The majority of the content seems to be nothing more than a reiteration of exactly what's in BOL and we all know how helpfull that can be.

I have tried several times to find information in this book that would help me get past a hurdle that I was having with SSIS and couldn't seem to get a good answer. Most of the explanations where thin and just glossed over the information. For instance, with Web Services being so hugely important these days, you think they would have spent more than about three pages discussing them. Their example was very simple and either SSIS is just not capable of being more robust in this area, or the authors didn't feel it was important enough.

I would rather have had them get authors who actually had expertise in each topic and right a detailed chapter on each feature. It would have been much more preferable to this book which tries to cover everything, but just doesn't give enough info to be of use. At least it wasn't to me.

Wrox used to stand for knowledge - each book I have gotten from them within the last two years has continued to dissappoint me.

As a good overview of what SSIS is, I think this book succeeds. As being a weighty tome of information, keep looking, you won't find it here. :(

Probably the people that gave this book a good review are the same people onthe covor - there are 10 people on the cover, count 'em ten. How can 10 people write a cohesive book?

Anyway, I got this book when I wasa beginner in SSIS, and now have a lot of experience with SSIS. Hardly ever have I found this book helpful. The instructions and examples are thin, and never seem to cover what I'm looking for. Only found a couple of topics like logging, or event handling with a little good info to get me started.

If I threw this book away I wouldn't miss it

I originally intended to give this book two (2) stars, just because I was hacked off at the terrible index, but the content is worth at least three stars. The problem is locating the specific content you need.

Example: User-defined package variables are often critical pieces of a SSIS package. Want to find out how to get/set package variable values from an Execute SQL Task? Well, you won't get anywhere trying to look up "Variables" in the index. Just when you think the text does not address this important issue, you browse the Execute SQL Task section and -- lo! -- there is an extended discussion on how to access package variables from SQL queries. But none of it is referenced by the "Variables" entry in the index.

Brian Knight, by all accounts, is a good writer who knows his material, but any book that has ten (!) authors can't help but display a variety of writing styles and competencies. The book is adequate as a learning tool, but not as a reference. If the publisher had been in less of a hurry to get to market, Mr. Knight might have been allowed to take on fewer collaborators and produced a more coherent book. And a more complete index.

Over the years I have come to rely on my wrox books. Here is another good one outlining a new technology in an easy to follow and easy to find structure. One of the best things about this book is that you do not need to have any prior DTS experience as the new SSIS engine from SQL has been totally rebuilt and has very little in common with it's precursor.

Personally I find myself using these books as a good reference source as they are logically layed out and it is easy to find a particular topic you need information on. I can't imaging simply sitting down and reading this book cover to cover but we all learn in our own way.

Another thumbs up from the wrox SQL series.

While this text does contain quite a bit of information about SSIS and its functionality, it does not do a good job of relating or building an overarching conceptual framework for understanding. Specifically, I appreciate a learning text that simultaneously teaches the "how to's" along with a vision of "why" things are done as they are. This latter consideration is extremely helpful when we leave the domain of canned examples and venture forth into the real world.

I suspect that when a team of authors assembles a text, as in this case, we get the benefit of vertical expertise but miss out on the encapsulated/synthesized wisdom that a single author conveys as he/she walks us through a detailed technology tool.

After 7 chapters in this text I switched to Microsoft Press': "SQL Server 2005 Integration Services, Step by Step" - for which I have written a more favorable Amazon review.

I read the book, followed the examples. This was a worthy introduction to SSIS and gave me a good start on my new job writing ETLs.

There are typos, a few code errors. The writing can be uneven. Somehow I survived. You will too.